"One little better than himself," said the patient, "a wretched
artisan, to whom, however, fate gave the power of reducing Ramorny
to a mutilated cripple--a curse go with his base spirit! His
miserable life is but to my revenge what a drop of water would be
to a furnace. I must speak briefly, for my ideas again wander: it
is only the necessity of the moment which keeps them together; as
a thong combines a handful of arrows. You are in danger, my lord
--I speak it with certainty: you have braved Douglas, and offended
your uncle, displeased your father, though that were a trifle, were
it not for the rest."

"I am sorry I have displeased my father," said the Prince, entirely
diverted from so insignificant a thing as the slaughter of an
artisan by the more important subject touched upon, "if indeed it
be so. But if I live, the strength of the Douglas shall be broken,
and the craft of Albany shall little avail him!"

"Ay--if--if. My lord," said Ramorny, "with such opposites as
you have, you must not rest upon if or but; you must resolve at
once to slay or be slain."

"How mean you, Ramorny? Your fever makes you rave" answered the
Duke of Rothsay.

"No, my lord," said Ramorny, "were my frenzy at the highest, the
thoughts that pass through my mind at this moment would qualify it.
It may be that regret for my own loss has made me desperate, that
anxious thoughts for your Highness's safety have made me nourish
bold designs; but I have all the judgment with which Heaven has
gifted me, when I tell you that, if ever you would brook the Scottish
crown, nay, more, if ever you would see another St. Valentine's
Day, you must--"

"What is it that I must do, Ramorny?" said the Prince, with an air
of dignity; "nothing unworthy of myself, I hope?"

"Nothing, certainly, unworthy or misbecoming a prince of Scotland,
if the bloodstained annals of our country tell the tale truly;
but that which may well shock the nerves of a prince of mimes and
merry makers."

"Thou art severe, Sir John Ramorny," said the Duke of Rothsay,
with an air of displeasure; "but thou hast dearly bought a right
to censure us by what thou hast lost in our cause."

"My Lord of Rothsay," said the knight, "the chirurgeon who dressed
this mutilated stump told me that the more I felt the pain his
knife and brand inflicted, the better was my chance of recovery.
I shall not, therefore, hesitate to hurt your feelings, while by
doing so I may be able to bring you to a sense of what is necessary
for your safety. Your Grace has been the pupil of mirthful folly
too long; you must now assume manly policy, or be crushed like a
butterfly on the bosom of the flower you are sporting on."

"I think I know your cast of morals, Sir John: you are weary of
merry folly--the churchmen call it vice--and long for a little
serious crime. A murder, now, or a massacre, would enhance the
flavour of debauch, as the taste of the olive gives zest to wine.
But my worst acts are but merry malice: I have no relish for the
bloody trade, and abhor to see or hear of its being acted even
on the meanest caitiff. Should I ever fill the throne, I suppose,
like my father before me, I must drop my own name, and be dubbed
Robert, in honour of the Bruce; well, an if it be so, every Scots
lad shall have his flag on in one hand and the other around his
lass's neck, and manhood shall be tried by kisses and bumpers, not
by dirks and dourlachs; and they shall write on my grave, 'Here
lies Robert, fourth of his name. He won not battles like Robert the
First. He rose not from a count to a king like Robert the Second.
He founded not churches like Robert the Third, but was contented
to live and die king of good fellows!' Of all my two centuries of
ancestors, I would only emulate the fame of--

"Old King Coul,
Who had a brown bowl."

"My gracious lord," said Ramorny, "let me remind you that your joyous
revels involve serious evils. If I had lost this hand in fighting
to attain for your Grace some important advantage over your too
powerful enemies, the loss would never have grieved me. But to be
reduced from helmet and steel coat to biggin and gown in a night
brawl--"

"Why, there again now, Sir John," interrupted the reckless Prince.
"How canst thou be so unworthy as to be for ever flinging thy bloody
hand in my face, as the ghost of Gaskhall threw his head at Sir
William Wallace? Bethink thee, thou art more unreasonable than Fawdyon
himself; for wight Wallace had swept his head off in somewhat a
hasty humour, whereas I would gladly stick thy hand on again, were
that possible. And, hark thee, since that cannot be, I will get thee
such a substitute as the steel hand of the old knight of Carslogie,
with which he greeted his friends, caressed his wife, braved his
antagonists, and did all that might be done by a hand of flesh and
blood, in offence or defence. Depend on it, John Ramorny, we have
much that is superfluous about us. Man can see with one eye, hear
with one ear, touch with one hand, smell with one nostril; and why
we should have two of each, unless to supply an accidental loss or
injury, I for one am at a loss to conceive."

Sir John Ramorny turned from the Prince with a low groan.

"Nay, Sir John;" said the Duke, "I am quite serious. You know the
truth touching the legend of Steel Hand of Carslogie better than
I, since he was your own neighbour. In his time that curious engine
could only be made in Rome; but I will wager an hundred marks with
you that, let the Perth armourer have the use of it for a pattern,
Henry of the Wynd will execute as complete an imitation as all the
smiths in Rome could accomplish, with all the cardinals to bid a
blessing on the work."

"I could venture to accept your wager, my lord," answered Ramorny,
bitterly, "but there is no time for foolery. You have dismissed me
from your service, at command of your uncle?"

"At command of my father," answered the Prince.

"Upon whom your uncle's commands are imperative," replied Ramorny.
"I am a disgraced man, thrown aside, as I may now fling away my
right hand glove, as a thing useless. Yet my head might help you,
though my hand be gone. Is your Grace disposed to listen to me for
one word of serious import, for I am much exhausted, and feel my
force sinking under me?"

"Speak your pleasure," said the Prince; "thy loss binds me to hear
thee, thy bloody stump is a sceptre to control me. Speak, then,
but be merciful in thy strength of privilege."

"I will be brief for mine own sake as well as thine; indeed, I
have but little to say. Douglas places himself immediately at the
head of his vassals. He will assemble, in the name of King Robert,
thirty thousand Borderers, whom he will shortly after lead into
the interior, to demand that the Duke of Rothsay receive, or rather
restore, his daughter to the rank and privileges of his Duchess.
King Robert will yield to any conditions which may secure peace.
What will the Duke do?"

"The Duke of Rothsay loves peace," said the Prince, haughtily;
"but he never feared war. Ere he takes back yonder proud peat to
his table and his bed, at the command of her father, Douglas must
be King of Scotland."

"Be it so; but even this is the less pressing peril, especially as
it threatens open violence, for the Douglas works not in secret."

"What is there which presses, and keeps us awake at this late
hour? I am a weary man, thou a wounded one, and the very tapers
are blinking, as if tired of our conference."

"Tell me, then, who is it that rules this kingdom of Scotland?"
said Ramorny.

"Robert, third of the name," said the Prince, raising his bonnet
as he spoke; "and long may he sway the sceptre!"

"True, and amen," answered Ramorny; "but who sways King Robert,
and dictates almost every measure which the good King pursues?"

"My Lord of Albany, you would say," replied the Prince. "Yes, it
is true my father is guided almost entirely by the counsels of his
brother; nor can we blame him in our consciences, Sir John Ramorny,
for little help hath he had from his son."

"Let us help him now, my lord," said Ramorny. "I am possessor of
a dreadful secret: Albany hath been trafficking with me, to join
him in taking your Grace's life! He offers full pardon for the
past, high favour for the future."

"How, man--my life? I trust, though, thou dost only mean my
kingdom? It were impious! He is my father's brother--they sat on
the knees of the same father--lay in the bosom of the same mother.
Out on thee, man, what follies they make thy sickbed believe!"

"Believe, indeed!" said Ramorny. "It is new to me to be termed
credulous. But the man through whom Albany communicated his
temptations is one whom all will believe so soon as he hints at
mischief--even the medicaments which are prepared by his hands
have a relish of poison."

"Tush! such a slave would slander a saint," replied the Prince.
"Thou art duped for once, Ramorny, shrewd as thou art. My uncle
of Albany is ambitious, and would secure for himself and for his
house a larger portion of power and wealth than he ought in reason
to desire. But to suppose he would dethrone or slay his brother's
son--Fie, Ramorny! put me not to quote the old saw, that evil
doers are evil dreaders. It is your suspicion, not your knowledge,
which speaks."

"Your Grace is fatally deluded. I will put it to an issue. The Duke
of Albany is generally hated for his greed and covetousness. Your
Highness is, it may be, more beloved than--"

Ramorny stopped, the Prince calmly filled up the blank: "More
beloved than I am honoured. It is so I would have it, Ramorny."

"At least," said Ramorny, "you are more beloved than you are feared,
and that is no safe condition for a prince. But give me your honour
and knightly word that you will not resent what good service I
shall do in your behalf, and lend me your signet to engage friends
in your name, and the Duke of Albany shall not assume authority in
this court till the wasted hand which once terminated this stump
shall be again united to the body, and acting in obedience to the
dictates of my mind."

"You would not venture to dip your hands in royal blood?" said the
Prince sternly.

"Fie, my lord, at no rate. Blood need not be shed; life may, nay,
will, be extinguished of itself. For want of trimming it with fresh
oil, or screening it from a breath of wind, the quivering light
will die in the socket. To suffer a man to die is not to kill him."

"True--I had forgot that policy. Well, then, suppose my uncle
Albany does not continue to live--I think that must be the phrase
--who then rules the court of Scotland?"

"Robert the Third, with consent, advice, and authority of the
most mighty David, Duke of Rothsay, Lieutenant of the Kingdom, and
alter ego; in whose favour, indeed, the good King, wearied with
the fatigues and troubles of sovereignty, will, I guess, be well
disposed to abdicate. So long live our brave young monarch, King
David the Third!

"Ille manu fortis
Anglis ludebit in hortis."

"And our father and predecessor," said Rothsay, "will he continue
to live to pray for us, as our beadsman, by whose favour he holds
the privilege of laying his grey hairs in the grave as soon, and
no earlier, than the course of nature permits, or must he also
encounter some of those negligences in consequence of which men
cease to continue to live, and can change the limits of a prison,
or of a convent resembling one, for the dark and tranquil cell,
where the priests say that the wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest?"

"You speak in jest, my lord," replied Ramorny: "to harm the good
old King were equally unnatural and impolitic."

"Why shrink from that, man, when thy whole scheme," answered the
Prince, in stern displeasure, "is one lesson of unnatural guilt,
mixed with short sighted ambition? If the King of Scotland can
scarcely make head against his nobles, even now when he can hold up
before them an unsullied and honourable banner, who would follow a
prince that is blackened with the death of an uncle and the imprisonment
of a father? Why, man, thy policy were enough to revolt a heathen
divan, to say nought of the council of a Christian nation. Thou wert
my tutor, Ramorny, and perhaps I might justly upbraid thy lessons
and example for some of the follies which men chide in me. Perhaps,
if it had not been for thee, I had not been standing at midnight
in this fool's guise (looking at his dress), to hear an ambitious
profligate propose to me the murder of an uncle, the dethronement
of the best of fathers. Since it is my fault as well as thine that
has sunk me so deep in the gulf of infamy, it were unjust that thou
alone shouldst die for it. But dare not to renew this theme to me,
on peril of thy life! I will proclaim thee to my father--to Albany
--to Scotland--throughout its length and breadth. As many market
crosses as are in the land shall have morsels of the traitor's
carcass, who dare counsel such horrors to the heir of Scotland. Well
hope I, indeed, that the fever of thy wound, and the intoxicating
influence of the cordials which act on thy infirm brain, have this
night operated on thee, rather than any fixed purpose."

"In sooth, my lord," said Ramorny, "if I have said any thing which
could so greatly exasperate your Highness, it must have been by
excess of zeal, mingled with imbecility of understanding. Surely
I, of all men, am least likely to propose ambitious projects with
a prospect of advantage to myself! Alas! my only future views must
be to exchange lance and saddle for the breviary and the confessional.
The convent of Lindores must receive the maimed and impoverished
knight of Ramorny, who will there have ample leisure to meditate
upon the text, 'Put not thy faith in princes.'"

"It is a goodly purpose," said the Prince, "and we will not be
lacking to promote it. Our separation, I thought, would have been
but for a time. It must now be perpetual. Certainly, after such
talk as we have held, it were meet that we should live asunder. But
the convent of Lindores, or what ever other house receives thee,
shall be richly endowed and highly favoured by us. And now, Sir
John of Ramorny, sleep--sleep--and forget this evil omened
conversation, in which the fever of disease and of wine has rather,
I trust, held colloquy than your own proper thoughts. Light to the
door, Eviot."

A call from Eviot summoned the attendants of the Prince, who had
been sleeping on the staircase and hall, exhausted by the revels
of the evening.

"Is there none amongst you sober?" said the Duke of Rothsay,
disgusted by the appearance of his attendants.

"Not a man--not a man," answered the followers, with a drunken
shout, "we are none of us traitors to the Emperor of Merry makers!"

"And are all of you turned into brutes, then?" said the Prince.

"In obedience and imitation of your Grace," answered one fellow;
"or, if we are a little behind your Highness, one pull at the
pitcher will--"

"Peace, beast!" said the Duke of Rothsay. "Are there none of you
sober, I say?"

"Yes, my noble liege," was the answer; "here is one false brother,
Watkins the Englishman."

"Come hither then, Watkins, and aid me with a torch; give me a cloak,
too, and another bonnet, and take away this trumpery," throwing
down his coronet of feathers. "I would I could throw off all my
follies as easily. English Wat, attend me alone, and the rest of
you end your revelry, and doff your mumming habits. The holytide
is expended, and the fast has begun."

"Our monarch has abdicated sooner than usual this night," said one
of the revel rout; but as the Prince gave no encouragement, such
as happened for the time to want the virtue of sobriety endeavoured
to assume it as well as they could, and the whole of the late
rioters began to adopt the appearance of a set of decent persons,
who, having been surprised into intoxication, endeavoured to
disguise their condition by assuming a double portion of formality
of behaviour. In the interim the Prince, having made a hasty reform
in his dress, was lighted to the door by the only sober man of the
company, but, in his progress thither, had well nigh stumbled over
the sleeping bulk of the brute Bonthron.

"How now! is that vile beast in our way once more?" he said in
anger and disgust. "Here, some of you, toss this caitiff into the
horse trough; that for once in his life he may be washed clean."

While the train executed his commands, availing themselves of a
fountain which was in the outer court, and while Bonthron underwent
a discipline which he was incapable of resisting, otherwise than by
some inarticulate groans and snorts, like, those of a dying boar,
the Prince proceeded on his way to his apartments, in a mansion
called the Constable's lodgings, from the house being the property
of the Earls of Errol. On the way, to divert his thoughts from the
more unpleasing matters, the Prince asked his companion how he came
to be sober, when the rest of the party had been so much overcome
with liquor.

"So please your honour's Grace," replied English Wat, "I confess
it was very familiar in me to be sober when it was your Grace's
pleasure that your train should be mad drunk; but in respect they
were all Scottishmen but myself, I thought it argued no policy in
getting drunken in their company, seeing that they only endure me
even when we are all sober, and if the wine were uppermost, I might
tell them a piece of my mind, and be paid with as many stabs as
there are skenes in the good company."

"So it is your purpose never to join any of the revels of our
household?"

"Under favour, yes; unless it be your Grace's pleasure that the
residue of your train should remain one day sober, to admit Will
Watkins to get drunk without terror of his life."

"Such occasion may arrive. Where dost thou serve, Watkins?"

"In the stable, so please you."

"Let our chamberlain bring thee into the household, as a yeoman
of the night watch. I like thy favour, and it is something to have
one sober fellow in the house, although he is only such through the
fear of death. Attend, therefore, near our person; and thou shalt
find sobriety a thriving virtue."

Meantime a load of care and fear added to the distress of Sir John
Ramorny's sick chamber. His reflections, disordered as they were
by the opiate, fell into great confusion when the Prince, in whose
presence he had suppressed its effect by strong resistance, had left
the apartment. His consciousness, which he had possessed perfectly
during the interview, began to be very much disturbed. He felt
a general sense that he had incurred a great danger, that he had
rendered the Prince his enemy, and that he had betrayed to him
a secret which might affect his own life. In this state of mind
and body, it was not strange that he should either dream, or else
that his diseased organs should become subject to that species of
phantasmagoria which is excited by the use of opium. He thought
that the shade of Queen Annabella stood by his bedside, and demanded
the youth whom she had placed under his charge, simple, virtuous,
gay, and innocent.

"Thou hast rendered him reckless, dissolute, and vicious," said
the shade of pallid Majesty. "Yet I thank thee, John of Ramorny,
ungrateful to me, false to thy word, and treacherous to my hopes.
Thy hate shall counteract the evil which thy friendship has done to
him. And well do I hope that, now thou art no longer his counsellor,
a bitter penance on earth may purchase my ill fated child pardon
and acceptance in a better world."

Ramorny stretched out his arms after his benefactress, and
endeavoured to express contrition and excuse; but the countenance
of the apparition became darker and sterner, till it was no longer
that of the late Queen, but presented the gloomy and haughty aspect
of the Black Douglas; then the timid and sorrowful face of King
Robert, who seemed to mourn over the approaching dissolution of
his royal house; and then a group of fantastic features, partly
hideous, partly ludicrous, which moped, and chattered, and twisted
themselves into unnatural and extravagant forms, as if ridiculing
his endeavour to obtain an exact idea of their lineaments.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A purple land, where law secures not life.

BYRON.


The morning of Ash Wednesday arose pale and bleak, as usual at
this season in Scotland, where the worst and most inclement weather
often occurs in the early spring months. It was a severe day of
frost, and the citizens had to sleep away the consequences of the
preceding holiday's debauchery. The sun had therefore risen for an
hour above the horizon before there was any general appearance of
life among the inhabitants of Perth, so that it was some time after
daybreak when a citizen, going early to mass, saw the body of the
luckless Oliver Proudfute lying on its face across the kennel in
the manner in which he had fallen under the blow; as our readers
will easily imagine, of Anthony Bonthron, the "boy of the belt"--
that is the executioner of the pleasure--of John of Ramorny.

This early citizen was Allan Griffin, so termed because he
was master of the Griffin Inn; and the alarm which he raised soon
brought together first straggling neighbours, and by and by a
concourse of citizens. At first from the circumstance of the well
known buff coat and the crimson feather in the head piece, the
noise arose that it was the stout smith that lay there slain. This
false rumour continued for some time, for the host of the Griffin,
who himself had been a magistrate, would not permit the body to
be touched or stirred till Bailie Craigdallie arrived, so that the
face was not seen..

"This concerns the Fair City, my friends," he said, "and if it is
the stout Smith of the Wynd who lies here, the man lives not in
Perth who will not risk land and life to avenge him. Look you, the
villains have struck him down behind his back, for there is not a
man within ten Scotch miles of Perth, gentle or simple, Highland
or Lowland, that would have met him face to face with such evil
purpose. Oh, brave men of Perth! the flower of your manhood has
been cut down, and that by a base and treacherous hand."

A wild cry of fury arose from the people, who were fast assembling.

"We will take him on our shoulders," said a strong butcher, "we
will carry him to the King's presence at the Dominican convent"

"Ay--ay," answered a blacksmith, "neither bolt nor bar shall keep
us from the King, neither monk nor mass shall break our purpose.
A better armourer never laid hammer on anvil!"

"To the Dominicans--to the Dominicans!" shouted the assembled
people.

"Bethink you, burghers," said another citizen, "our king is a good
king and loves us like his children. It is the Douglas and the Duke
of Albany that will not let good King Robert hear the distresses
of his people."

"Are we to be slain in our own streets for the King's softness of
heart?" said the butcher. "The Bruce did otherwise. If the King
will not keep us, we will keep ourselves. Ring the bells backward,
every bell of them that is made of metal. Cry, and spare not, St.
Johnston's hunt is up!"

"Ay," cried another citizen, "and let us to the holds of Albany
and the Douglas, and burn them to the ground. Let the fires tell
far and near that Perth knew how to avenge her stout Henry Gow. He
has fought a score of times for the Fair City's right; let us show
we can once to avenge his wrong. Hally ho! brave citizens, St.
Johnston's hunt is up!"

This cry, the well known rallying word amongst the inhabitants of
Perth, and seldom heard but on occasions of general uproar, was
echoed from voice to voice; and one or two neighbouring steeples,
of which the enraged citizens possessed themselves, either by consent
of the priests or in spite of their opposition, began to ring out
the ominous alarm notes, in which, as the ordinary succession of
the chimes was reversed, the bells were said to be rung backward.

Still, as the crowd thickened, and the roar waxed more universal
and louder, Allan Griffin, a burly man with a deep voice, and well
respected among high and low, kept his station as he bestrode the
corpse, and called loudly to the multitude to keep back and wait
the arrival of the magistrates.

"We must proceed by order in this matter, my masters, we must have
our magistrates at our head. They are duly chosen and elected in
our town hall, good men and true every one; we will not be called
rioters, or idle perturbators of the king's peace. Stand you still,
and make room, for yonder comes Bailie Craigdallie, ay, and honest
Simon Glover, to whom the Fair City is so much bounden. Alas--alas!
my kind townsmen, his beautiful daughter was a bride yesternight;
this morning the Fair Maid of Perth is a widow before she has been
a wife."

This new theme of sympathy increased the rage and sorrow of the
crowd the more, as many women now mingled with them, who echoed
back the alarm cry to the men.

"Ay--ay, St. Johnston's hunt is up! For the Fair Maid of Perth
and the brave Henry Gow! Up--up, every one of you, spare not
for your skin cutting! To the stables!--to the stables! When the
horse is gone the man at arms is useless--cut off the grooms and
yeomen; lame, maim, and stab the horses; kill the base squires and
pages. Let these proud knights meet us on their feet if they dare!"

"They dare not--they dare not," answered the men; "their strength
is their horses and armour; and yet the haughty and ungrateful
villains have slain a man whose skill as an armourer was never
matched in Milan or Venice. To arms!--to arms, brave burghers!
St. Johnston's hunt is up!"

Amid this clamour, the magistrates and superior class of inhabitants
with difficulty obtained room to examine the body, having with them
the town clerk to take an official protocol, or, as it is still
called, a precognition, of the condition in which it was found.
To these delays the multitude submitted, with a patience and order
which strongly marked the national character of a people whose
resentment has always been the more deeply dangerous, that they
will, without relaxing their determination of vengeance, submit
with patience to all delays which are necessary to ensure its
attainment. The multitude, therefore, received their magistrates
with a loud cry, in which the thirst of revenge was announced,
together with the deferential welcome to the patrons by whose
direction they expected to obtain it in right and legal fashion.

While these accents of welcome still rung above the crowd, who
now filled the whole adjacent streets, receiving and circulating a
thousand varying reports, the fathers of the city caused the body
to be raised and more closely examined; when it was instantly
perceived, and the truth publicly announced, that not the armourer
of the Wynd, so highly and, according to the esteemed qualities of
the time, so justly popular among his fellow citizens, but a man
of far less general estimation, though not without his own value
in society, lay murdered before them--the brisk bonnet maker,
Oliver Proudfute. The resentment of the people had so much turned
upon the general opinion that their frank and brave champion,
Henry Gow, was the slaughtered person, that the contradiction of
the report served to cool the general fury, although, if poor Oliver
had been recognised at first, there is little doubt that the cry
of vengeance would have been as unanimous, though not probably so
furious, as in the case of Henry Wynd. The first circulation of
the unexpected intelligence even excited a smile among the crowd,
so near are the confines of the ludicrous to those of the terrible.

"The murderers have without doubt taken him for Henry Smith,"
said Griffin, "which must have been a great comfort to him in the
circumstances."

But the arrival of other persons on the scene soon restored its
deeply tragic character.



CHAPTER XIX.

Who's that that rings the bell? Diablos, ho!
The town will rise.

Othello, Act II. Scene III.


The wild rumours which flew through the town, speedily followed by
the tolling of the alarm bells spread general consternation. The
nobles and knights, with their followers, gathered in different
places of rendezvous, where a defence could best be maintained; and
the alarm reached the royal residence where the young prince was
one of the first to appear, to assist, if necessary, in the defence
of the old king. The scene of the preceding night ran in his
recollection; and, remembering the bloodstained figure of Bonthron,
he conceived, though indistinctly, that the ruffian's action had
been connected with this uproar. The subsequent and more interesting
discourse with Sir John Ramorny had, however, been of such an
impressive nature as to obliterate all traces of what he had vaguely
heard of the bloody act of the assassin, excepting a confused
recollection that some one or other had been slain. It was chiefly
on his father's account that he had assumed arms with his household
train, who, clad in bright armour, and bearing lances in their
hands, made now a figure very different from that of the preceding
night, when they appeared as intoxicated Bacchanalians. The kind
old monarch received this mark of filial attachment with tears of
gratitude, and proudly presented his son to his brother Albany,
who entered shortly afterwards. He took them each by the hand.

"Now are we three Stuarts," he said, "as inseparable as the holy
trefoil; and, as they say the wearer of that sacred herb mocks at
magical delusion, so we, while we are true to each other, may set
malice and enmity at defiance."

The brother and son kissed the kind hand which pressed theirs,
while Robert III expressed his confidence in their affection. The
kiss of the youth was, for the time, sincere; that of the brother
was the salute of the apostate Judas.

In the mean time the bell of St. John's church alarmed, amongst
others, the inhabitants of Curfew Street. In the house of Simon
Glover, old Dorothy Glover, as she was called (for she also took
name from the trade she practised, under her master's auspices),
was the first to catch the sound. Though somewhat deaf upon ordinary
occasions, her ear for bad news was as sharp as a kite's scent for
carrion; for Dorothy, otherwise an industrious, faithful, and even
affectionate creature, had that strong appetite for collecting and
retailing sinister intelligence which is often to be marked in the
lower classes. Little accustomed to be listened to, they love the
attention which a tragic tale ensures to the bearer, and enjoy,
perhaps, the temporary equality to which misfortune reduces those
who are ordinarily accounted their superiors. Dorothy had no sooner
possessed herself of a slight packet of the rumours which were
flying abroad than she bounced into her master's bedroom, who had
taken the privilege of age and the holytide to sleep longer than
usual.

"There he lies, honest man," said Dorothy, half in a screeching
and half in a wailing tone of sympathy--"there he lies; his best
friend slain, and he knowing as little about it as the babe new
born, that kens not life from death."

"How now!" said the glover, starting up out of his bed. "What is
the matter, old woman? Is my daughter well?"

"Old woman!" said Dorothy, who, having her fish hooked, chose to
let him play a little. "I am not so old," said she, flouncing out
of the room, "as to bide in the place till a man rises from his
naked bed--"

And presently she was heard at a distance in the parlour beneath,
melodiously singing to the scrubbing of her own broom.

"Dorothy--screech owl--devil--say but my daughter is well!"

"I am well, my father," answered the Fair Maid of Perth, speaking
from her bedroom, "perfectly well, but what, for Our Lady's sake,
is the matter? The bells ring backward, and there is shrieking and
crying in the streets."

"I will presently know the cause. Here, Conachar, come speedily
and tie my points. I forgot--the Highland loon is far beyond
Fortingall. Patience, daughter, I will presently bring you news."

"Ye need not hurry yourself for that, Simon Glover," quoth the
obdurate old woman; "the best and the worst of it may be tauld
before you could hobble over your door stane. I ken the haill story
abroad; 'for,' thought I, 'our goodman is so wilful that he'll be
for banging out to the tuilzie, be the cause what it like; and sae
I maun e'en stir my shanks, and learn the cause of all this, or he
will hae his auld nose in the midst of it, and maybe get it nipt
off before he knows what for.'"

"And what is the news, then, old woman?" said the impatient glover,
still busying himself with the hundred points or latchets which
were the means of attaching the doublet to the hose.

Dorothy suffered him to proceed in his task till she conjectured
it must be nearly accomplished; and foresaw that; if she told not
the secret herself, her master would be abroad to seek in person
for the cause of the disturbance. She, therefore, halloo'd out:
"Aweel--aweel, ye canna say it is me fault, if you hear ill news
before you have been at the morning mass. I would have kept it from
ye till ye had heard the priest's word; but since you must hear
it, you have e'en lost the truest friend that ever gave hand to
another, and Perth maun mourn for the bravest burgher that ever
took a blade in hand!"

"Harry Smith! Harry Smith!" exclaimed the father and the daughter
at once.

"Oh, ay, there ye hae it at last," said Dorothy; "and whose fault
was it but your ain? ye made such a piece of work about his companying
with a glee woman, as if he had companied with a Jewess!"

Dorothy would have gone on long enough, but her master exclaimed to
his daughter, who was still in her own apartment: "It is nonsense,
Catharine--all the dotage of an old fool. No such thing has happened.
I will bring you the true tidings in a moment," and snatching up
his staff, the old man hurried out past Dorothy and into the street,
where the throng of people were rushing towards the High Street.

Dorothy, in the mean time, kept muttering to herself: "Thy father
is a wise man, take his ain word for it. He will come next by some
scathe in the hobbleshow, and then it will be, 'Dorothy, get the
lint,' and 'Dorothy, spread the plaster;' but now it is nothing
but nonsense, and a lie, and impossibility, that can come out of
Dorothy's mouth. Impossible! Does auld Simon think that Harry Smith's
head was as hard as his stithy, and a haill clan of Highlandmen
dinging at him?"

Here she was interrupted by a figure like an angel, who came wandering
by her with wild eye, cheek deadly pale, hair dishevelled, and an
apparent want of consciousness, which terrified the old woman out
of her discontented humour.

"Our Lady bless my bairn!" said she. "What look you sae wild for?"

"Did you not say some one was dead?" said Catharine, with a frightful
uncertainty of utterance, as if her organs of speech and hearing
served her but imperfectly.

"Dead, hinny! Ay--ay, dead eneugh; ye'll no hae him to gloom at
ony mair."

"Dead!" repeated Catharine, still with the same uncertainty of
voice and manner. "Dead--slain--and by Highlanders?"

"I'se warrant by Highlanders, the lawless loons. Wha is it else
that kills maist of the folks about, unless now and than when the
burghers take a tirrivie, and kill ane another, or whiles that
the knights and nobles shed blood? But I'se uphauld it's been the
Highlandmen this bout. The man was no in Perth, laird or loon, durst
have faced Henry Smith man to man. There's been sair odds against
him; ye'll see that when it's looked into."

"Highlanders!" repeated Catharine, as if haunted by some idea which
troubled her senses. "Highlanders! Oh, Conachar--Conachar!"

"Indeed, and I dare say you have lighted on the very man, Catharine.
They quarrelled, as you saw, on the St. Valentine's Even, and had
a warstle. A Highlandman has a long memory for the like of that.
Gie him a cuff at Martinmas, and his cheek will be tingling at
Whitsunday. But what could have brought down the lang legged loons
to do their bloody wark within burgh?"

"Woe's me, it was I," said Catharine--"it was I brought the
Highlanders down--I that sent for Conachar--ay, they have lain
in wait--but it was I that brought them within reach of their
prey. But I will see with my own eyes--and then--something we
will do. Say to my father I will be back anon."

"Are ye distraught, lassie?" shouted Dorothy, as Catharine made past
her towards the street door. "You would not gang into the street
with the hair hanging down your haffets in that guise, and you kenn'd
for the Fair Maid of Perth? Mass, but she's out in the street, come
o't what like, and the auld Glover will be as mad as if I could
withhold her, will she nill she, flyte she fling she. This is a
brave morning for an Ash Wednesday! What's to be done? If I were
to seek my master among the multitude, I were like to be crushed
beneath their feet, and little moan made for the old woman. And
am I to run after Catharine, who ere this is out of sight, and far
lighter of foot than I am? so I will just down the gate to Nicol
Barber's, and tell him a' about it."

While the trusty Dorothy was putting her prudent resolve into
execution, Catharine ran through the streets of Perth in a manner
which at another moment would have brought on her the attention
of every one who saw her hurrying on with a reckless impetuosity
wildly and widely different from the ordinary decency and composure
of her step and manner, and without the plaid, scarf, or mantle
which "women of good," of fair character and decent rank, universally
carried around them, when they went abroad. But, distracted as the
people were, every one inquiring or telling the cause of the tumult,
and most recounting it different ways, the negligence of her dress
and discomposure of her manner made no impression on any one;
and she was suffered to press forward on the path she had chosen
without attracting more notice than the other females who, stirred
by anxious curiosity or fear, had come out to inquire the cause of
an alarm so general--it might be to seek for friends for whose
safety they were interested.

As Catharine passed along, she felt all the wild influence of
the agitating scene, and it was with difficulty she forbore from
repeating the cries of lamentation and alarm which were echoed
around her. In the mean time, she rushed rapidly on, embarrassed
like one in a dream, with a strange sense of dreadful calamity,
the precise nature of which she was unable to define, but which
implied the terrible consciousness that the man who loved her so
fondly, whose good qualities she so highly esteemed, and whom she
now felt to be dearer than perhaps she would before have acknowledged
to her own bosom, was murdered, and most probably by her means.
The connexion betwixt Henry's supposed death and the descent of
Conachar and his followers, though adopted by her in a moment of
extreme and engrossing emotion, was sufficiently probable to have
been received for truth, even if her understanding had been at
leisure to examine its credibility. Without knowing what she sought
except the general desire to know the worst of the dreadful report,
she hurried forward to the very spot which of all others her feelings
of the preceding day would have induced her to avoid.

Who would, upon the evening of Shrovetide, have persuaded the
proud, the timid, the shy, the rigidly decorous Catharine Glover
that before mass on Ash Wednesday she should rush through the
streets of Perth, making her way amidst tumult and confusion, with
her hair unbound and her dress disarranged, to seek the house of
that same lover who, she had reason to believe, had so grossly and
indelicately neglected and affronted her as to pursue a low and
licentious amour? Yet so it was; and her eagerness taking, as if
by instinct, the road which was most free, she avoided the High
Street, where the pressure was greatest, and reached the wynd by
the narrow lanes on the northern skirt of the town, through which
Henry Smith had formerly escorted Louise. But even these comparatively
lonely passages were now astir with passengers, so general was the
alarm. Catharine Glover made her way through them, however, while
such as observed her looked on each other and shook their heads in
sympathy with her distress. At length, without any distinct idea
of her own purpose, she stood before her lover's door and knocked
for admittance.

The silence which succeeded the echoing of her hasty summons increased
the alarm which had induced her to take this desperate measure.

"Open--open, Henry!" she cried. "Open, if you yet live! Open, if
you would not find Catharine Glover dead upon your threshold!"

As she cried thus frantically to ears which she was taught to
believe were stopped by death, the lover she invoked opened the
door in person, just in time to prevent her sinking on the ground.
The extremity of his ecstatic joy upon an occasion so unexpected
was qualified only by the wonder which forbade him to believe it
real, and by his alarm at the closed eyes, half opened and blanched
lips, total absence of complexion, and apparently total cessation
of breathing.

Henry had remained at home, in spite of the general alarm, which
had reached his ears for a considerable time, fully determined to
put himself in the way of no brawls that he could avoid; and it was
only in compliance with a summons from the magistrates, which, as
a burgher, he was bound to obey, that, taking his sword and a spare
buckler from the wall, he was about to go forth, for the first time
unwillingly, to pay his service, as his tenure bound him.

"It is hard," he said, "to be put forward in all the town feuds,
when the fighting work is so detestable to Catharine. I am sure
there are enough of wenches in Perth that say to their gallants,
'Go out, do your devoir bravely, and win your lady's grace'; and
yet they send not for their lovers, but for me, who cannot do the
duties of a man to protect a minstrel woman, or of a burgess who
fights for the honour of his town, but this peevish Catharine uses
me as if I were a brawler and bordeller!"

Such were the thoughts which occupied his mind, when, as he opened
his door to issue forth, the person dearest to his thoughts, but
whom he certainly least expected to see, was present to his eyes,
and dropped into his arms.

His mixture of surprise, joy, and anxiety did not deprive him of
the presence of mind which the occasion demanded. To place Catharine
Glover in safety, and recall her to herself was to be thought
of before rendering obedience to the summons of the magistrates,
however pressingly that had been delivered. He carried his lovely
burden, as light as a feather, yet more precious than the same
quantity of purest gold, into a small bedchamber which had been
his mother's. It was the most fit for an invalid, as it looked into
the garden, and was separated from the noise of the tumult.

"Here, Nurse--Nurse Shoolbred--come quick--come for death
and life--here is one wants thy help!"

Up trotted the old dame. "If it should but prove any one that will
keep thee out of the scuffle," for she also had been aroused by
the noise; but what was her astonishment when, placed in love and
reverence on the bed of her late mistress, and supported by the
athletic arms of her foster son, she saw the apparently lifeless
form of the Fair Maid of Perth.

"Catharine Glover!" she said; "and, Holy Mother, a dying woman, as
it would seem!"

"Not so, old woman," said her foster son: "the dear heart throbs
--the sweet breath comes and returns! Come thou, that may aid her
more meetly than I--bring water--essences--whatever thy old
skill can devise. Heaven did not place her in my arms to die, but
to live for herself and me!"

With an activity which her age little promised, Nurse Shoolbred
collected the means of restoring animation; for, like many women
of the period, she understood what was to be done in such cases,
nay, possessed a knowledge of treating wounds of an ordinary
description, which the warlike propensities of her foster son kept
in pretty constant exercise.

"Come now," she said, "son Henry, unfold your arms from about
my patient, though she is worth the pressing, and set thy hands
at freedom to help me with what I want. Nay, I will not insist on
your quitting her hand, if you will beat the palm gently, as the
fingers unclose their clenched grasp."

"I beat her slight, beautiful hand!" said Henry; "you were as well
bid me beat a glass cup with a forehammer as tap her fair palm with
my horn hard fingers. But the fingers do unfold, and we will find
a better way than beating"; and he applied his lips to the pretty
hand, whose motion indicated returning sensation. One or two deep
sighs succeeded, and the Fair Maid of Perth opened her eyes, fixed
them on her lover, as he kneeled by the bedside, and again sunk
back on the pillow. As she withdrew not her hand from her lover's
hold or from his grasp, we must in charity believe that the return
to consciousness was not so complete as to make her aware that he
abused the advantage, by pressing it alternately to his lips and
his bosom. At the same time we are compelled to own that the blood
was colouring in her cheek, and that her breathing was deep and
regular, for a minute or two during this relapse.

The noise at the door began now to grow much louder, and Henry was
called for by all his various names of Smith. Gow, and Hal of the
Wynd, as heathens used to summon their deities by different epithets.
At last, like Portuguese Catholics when exhausted with entreating
their saints, the crowd without had recourse to vituperative
exclamations.

"Out upon you, Henry! You are a disgraced man, man sworn to your
burgher oath, and a traitor to the Fair City, unless you come
instantly forth!"

It would seem that nurse Shoolbred's applications were now so far
successful that Catharine's senses were in some measure restored;
for, turning her face more towards that of her lover than her former
posture permitted, she let her right hand fall on his shoulder,
leaving her left still in his possession, and seeming slightly to
detain him, while she whispered: "Do not go, Henry--stay with
me; they will kill thee, these men of blood."

It would seem that this gentle invocation, the result of finding
the lover alive whom she expected to have only recognised as a
corpse, though it was spoken so low as scarcely to be intelligible,
had more effect to keep Henry Wynd in his present posture than
the repeated summons of many voices from without had to bring him
downstairs.

"Mass, townsmen," cried one hardy citizen to his companions, "the
saucy smith but jests with us! Let us into the house, and bring
him out by the lug and the horn."

"Take care what you are doing," said a more cautious assailant.
"The man that presses on Henry Gow's retirement may go into his
house with sound bones, but will return with ready made work for
the surgeon. But here comes one has good right to do our errand to
him, and make the recreant hear reason on both sides of his head."

The person of whom this was spoken was no other than Simon Glover
himself. He had arrived at the fatal spot where the unlucky bonnet
maker's body was lying, just in time to discover, to his great
relief, that when it was turned with the face upwards by Bailie
Craigdallie's orders, the features of the poor braggart Proudfute
were recognised, when the crowd expected to behold those of their
favorite champion, Henry Smith. A laugh, or something approaching
to one, went among those who remembered how hard Oliver had struggled
to obtain the character of a fighting man, however foreign to
his nature and disposition, and remarked now that he had met with
a mode of death much better suited to his pretensions than to his
temper. But this tendency to ill timed mirth, which savoured of the
rudeness of the times, was at once hushed by the voice, and cries,
and exclamations of a woman who struggled through the crowd,
screaming at the same time, "Oh, my husband--my husband!"

Room was made for the sorrower, who was followed by two or three
female friends. Maudie Proudfute had been hitherto only noticed
as a good looking, black haired woman, believed to be "dink" and
disdainful to those whom she thought meaner or poorer than herself,
and lady and empress over her late husband, whom she quickly
caused to lower his crest when she chanced to hear him crowing out
of season. But now, under the influence of powerful passion, she
assumed a far more imposing character.

"Do you laugh," she said, "you unworthy burghers of Perth, because
one of your own citizens has poured his blood into the kennel? or
do you laugh because the deadly lot has lighted on my husband? How
has he deserved this? Did he not maintain an honest house by his own
industry, and keep a creditable board, where the sick had welcome
and the poor had relief? Did he not lend to those who wanted, stand
by his neighbours as a friend, keep counsel and do justice like a
magistrate?"

"It is true--it is true," answered the assembly; "his blood is
our blood as much as if it were Henry Gow's."

"You speak truth, neighbours," said Bailie Craigdallie; "and this
feud cannot be patched up as the former was: citizen's blood must
not flow unavenged down our kennels, as if it were ditch water, or
we shall soon see the broad Tay crimsoned with it. But this blow
was never meant for the poor man on whom it has unhappily fallen.
Every one knew what Oliver Proudfute was, how wide he would speak,
and how little he would do. He has Henry Smith's buff coat, target,
and head piece. All the town know them as well as I do: there is
no doubt on't. He had the trick, as you know, of trying to imitate
the smith in most things. Some one, blind with rage, or perhaps
through liquor, has stricken the innocent bonnet maker, whom no
man either hated or feared, or indeed cared either much or little
about, instead of the stout smith, who has twenty feuds upon his
hands."

"What then, is to be done, bailie?" cried the multitude.